Hormone Balance

Unlike men, there are no approved drugs to take. If you go strictly by the rules, the best medical science has to offer is counseling, or a device that applies suction to your clitoris, or physical therapy for your vagina. While not to diminish these choices, where's that convenient, little blue pill for women?

That's what Joanne wanted to know. This isn't her real name, but she's a 26-year-old nurse at the Cleveland Clinic who felt no sex drive -- nothing, nada, zilch -- for eight years. She wasn't happy, and neither was her boyfriend.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

Lisle Nolan started noticing the symptoms four months ago: headaches, mood swings and a menstrual cycle that was out of whack.

"It's the exact same symptoms as my period, but I get them every two weeks," said Nolan, 46, a communications executive from Atlanta, Georgia.

Nolan went online to research what was going on, but it was her gynecologist who confirmed the diagnosis: perimenopause.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

As reported in the American Journal of Cardiology, women whose ratio of LDL ("bad") cholesterol to HDL ("good") cholesterol came to less than 2.5 had no increased risk of a heart attack or angina while using estrogen alone or with progesterone. By contrast, a ratio of 2.5 or higher was associated with a 73 percent higher likelihood of heart-related illness.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

A woman's race and ethnicity appear to be important predictors of the age at which she will enter menopause, study findings hint.

Compared with non-Latina White women, natural menopause appears to occur at an earlier age among Latina women and a later age among Japanese-American women, Dr. Katherine DeLellis Henderson and colleagues found.

Age at natural menopause among African American and Native Hawaiian women appears similar to that of non-Latina White women.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

A potent bone-building drug may cut the risk of relapse in premenopausal women with early breast cancer, a study shows.

In a study of more than 1,800 patients, women who got two injections a year of the bone drug Zometa were about one-third less likely to suffer a recurrence than those who did not.

• Login or register to post comments
• Read more
• report spam
• More info

Results from a decades-long study may enable women to drink coffee or tea without worry that doing so will increase their risk for breast cancer, study findings suggest.

• Login or register to post comments
• Read more
• report spam
• More info

New research results show that a non-estrogen drug called Ophena significantly improves symptoms of vaginal dryness and painful intercourse in postmenopausal women, raising hopes of an alterative to estrogen replacement therapy.

• Login or register to post comments
• Read more
• report spam
• More info

Too many women are missing out on hormone replacement therapy because of "overhyped" safety concerns, an international group of experts warns.

Some of the concerns over HRT and heart disease and breast cancer are not justified by the clinical evidence, the International Menopause Society said.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

One type of hormone therapy -- estrogen plus progestin -- already is well-known to increase the risk of breast cancer. But a major study of women able to use estrogen alone didn't find that link.

• Login or register to post comments
• Read more
• report spam
• More info

The new findings, reported in the International Journal of Cancer, suggest that alcohol and HRT may combine to further boost the odds of developing the disease.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

Let's face it: There's no body part women obsess about more than breasts -- their size, shape, sag factor, and whether those strange pains stem from monthly PMS hormones or something more ominous, like breast cancer.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

The first follow-up of a landmark study of hormone use after menopause shows heart problems linked with the pills seem to fade after women stop taking them, while surprising new cancer risks appear.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

"Previous studies suggest that only women who use these hormones for at least 5 years have an increase in breast cancer risk, but none have evaluated how shorter durations of use impact risk of lobular breast cancer," lead author Dr. Christopher I. Li told Reuters Health.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

"We have already found that a late menopause is associated with reduced total mortality," Jacobsen explained, "and this fits into the picture that women who are biologically younger than their chronological age...tend to live longer."

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info

A troubling study from Belgium hints that long-term use of oral contraceptives — at least the high-estrogen ones sold decades ago — might increase the chances of having artery buildups that can raise the risk of heart disease.

• Login or register to post comments
• report spam
• More info